cladking Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Martin Stower Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> > You talk about “most” people and then jump to
> > Petrie.
>
> Petrie was quite exceptional.

Which makes what you were saying the fallacy of accident, as outlined here:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/accident.html

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/e/eppersonm/phil004/documents/eb_formal%20and%20material%20fallacies.pdf

> > He was an innovator in his field. From the age of
> > eight (8) he was a strong critic of archaeology
> > (or antiquarianism) as he found it.
>
> Pioneers often show signs at a young age. They
> almost invariably are against the status quo.
> It's not his fault that Egyptology never moved on
> from his early start in scientific archaeology.

What happened to this?

“Petrie is the source of much of what is wrong with Egyptology. He designed it around 19th century science and then it was never updated to 20th century science. . . .”

http://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1087882,1090405#msg-1090405

And still the “Egyptology” mantra, as if the difference between Egyptology (a primarily linguistic discipline) and Egyptian Archaeology had never been mentioned. Petrie’s innovations were in archaeology. Where he did it doesn’t matter and he didn’t do all of it in Egypt. If we consider what stands most clearly in the tradition he established, the teaching of Egyptian Archaeology at UCL, we return to this:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/studying/undergraduate/degrees/ba_egyptian_archaeology/structure

First thing we notice is that this is predominantly an archaeology course. Are you really going to try and tell us that this is a 19th-century course? How does “Current issues in archaeological theory” fit into that?

Even where, as here:

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/egyptology-ba-hons/overview/

—the degree is nominally in Egyptology, we find that a distinction is made between the “Linguistic pathway” and the “Archaeology pathway”. The terminology, of no great importance in itself, reflects a real difference.

> > On the argument you outline (which mistakes most
> > for all), there can be no innovation or progress,
> > so what does it matter if something “is a
> > product of” the 19th century (or the 18th, or
> > the 17th)?
>
> In the 19th century surgeons were in too much
> hurry to wash their hands.

And again “the 19th century” becomes 100 years of stasis.

On the contrary, it was in the 19th century that all of this changed:

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/ignazsemmelweis

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/florencenightingale

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/louispasteur

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/josephlister

Neither should we be too sure that doctors today are much better:

http://www.methodquarterly.com/2014/11/handwashing/

> > Yeah, sure, they’re all still communicating by
> > quill-written letter. They ride horses
> > everywhere. They never use (or develop)
> > specialist software. Etc.
>
> The world has changed a great deal since the 19th
> century but Egyptological thinking has not.

So you say. I see no sign of you thoughts on the question being well-informed or consistent.

M.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17-Feb-17 15:24 by Martin Stower.